After trying to sever my finger the day after my birthday...

...I've found it awkward to type.

You see, it's my left middle finger (a/k/a "the auxilliary talking finger," "I-think-you're-#1-and-I-really-want-you-to-see-it finger," "the tall finger of fellowship"). What letter does that finger access most often?

The "E."

Oy.

So, yeah, typing.

I had something of a mishap with my electric hedge trimmers, he says with English understatement. Fortunately, I still have the entire digit, but it's broken and has 2-4 more weeks before it heals entirely. More fortunately, none of my children saw it happen, nor did they see me bleed like a killing floor. I remained fairly stoic, or at least did so in my mind. It could have been much, much worse.

Before that, I had the Annual Kids Activities Schedule Blitz, which turns May into a disorienting swirl of travel, recrimination and shared misery. So, of course, we'll do the same thing next year. But that puts the kibosh on writing and pontificating (but I repeat myself).

Heather's fine, the kids are fine (even if Kamikaze Louis is shaving hours off my lifespan every day), and even my 10% pay cut (speaking of "shared misery") hasn't been as gruesome as feared.

Not sure what I can promise, posting-wise, but at least I'm still alive-ish and largely unmaimed, which allows for the possibility. Random short reviews from the library has a certain manageable appeal.

Notes toward a diagnosis of our times.

"'What happens next?'

We shattered the family and called it 'liberation.' We elected grifters and called it 'self-government.' We pillaged the future and called it 'prosperity.' We lionized theft and called it 'commerce.' We scorned our heritage and called it 'education.' We disposed of the helpless and called it 'freedom.' We laughed at virtue and called it 'enlightenment.'

You really want to know 'what happens next?'

That's easy: what we deserve."

The Narrative Patrol.

Media row at the Kermit Gosnell patient and infant murder trial.

There is no area of American politics in which the press is more activist or biased or unethical than social issues, the so-called culture wars. And the culture of permissive abortion they favor has consequences, which they would rather not look squarely at, thank you very much.

[Quote from here.]
Here's some unsolicited advice for social conservatives: never, ever speak to large-circulation newspapers or television networks.

Why not? Because they our enemy, that's why. They have concocted a narrative of breath-taking mendacity regarding us: we're authoritarian haters, patriarchal tyrants straight from the pages of The Handmaid's Tale, and/or killers of "providers of women's health services." Period. Stock villains, to be quoted briefly, if at all, and subject to well-poisoning adjectives like "strident," or "militant," or "inflexible." And if there is a story that indicates social conservative arguments have merit, or threatens to move the ball in that direction--it gets downplayed or embargoed.

This will never end--they will never quit doing this--until the entire edifice of fraud goes bankrupt.

Exhibit A: the news embargo on the hellish millionaire abortionist Kermit Gosnell, alleged murderer of a 41 year old Asian immigrant, Karnamaya Mongar, and seven infants. One of the local reporters, someone who takes his profession seriously, says simply:

Sat through a full day of testimony at the Kermitt Gosnell trial today. It is beyond the most morbid Hollywood horror. It will change you.

The usually-wobbly Conor Friedersdorf nails it:

Inducing live births and subsequently severing the heads of the babies is indeed a horrific story that merits significant attention. Strange as it seems to say it, however, that understates the case.

For this isn't solely a story about babies having their heads severed, though it is that. It is also a story about a place where, according to the grand jury, women were sent to give birth into toilets; where a doctor casually spread gonorrhea and chlamydiae to unsuspecting women through the reuse of cheap, disposable instruments; an office where a 15-year-old administered anesthesia; an office where former workers admit to playing games when giving patients powerful narcotics; an office where white women were attended to by a doctor and black women were pawned off on clueless untrained staffers. Any single one of those things would itself make for a blockbuster news story. Is it even conceivable that an optometrist who attended to his white patients in a clean office while an intern took care of the black patients in a filthy room wouldn't make national headlines? 

But it isn't even solely a story of a rogue clinic that's awful in all sorts of sensational ways either. Multiple local and state agencies are implicated in an oversight failure that is epic in proportions! If I were a city editor for any Philadelphia newspaper the grand jury report would suggest a dozen major investigative projects I could undertake if I had the staff to support them. And I probably wouldn't have the staff. But there is so much fodder for additional reporting.

There is, finally, the fact that abortion, one of the most hotly contested, polarizing debates in the country, is at the center of this case. It arguably informs the abortion debate in any number of ways, and has numerous plausible implications for abortion policy, including the oversight and regulation of clinics, the appropriateness of late-term abortions, the penalties for failing to report abuses, the statute of limitations for killings like those with which Gosnell is charged, whether staff should be legally culpable for the bad behavior of doctors under whom they work...

There's even a Nuremburg Defense angle that would lead to discussion, too. Instead, crickets. And they aren't even trying too hard to excuse their decision to embargo the story: that's a Philly crime story, says WaPo reporter Sarah Kliff, and we don't do non-DC local crime stories. Local editor and polemicist Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press sneers similarly.

Which sounds reasonable--except for the part where it's total bullshit. Trayvon Martin, Casey Anthony--and in Dickerson's case, the Kansas murder of abortionist George Tiller--all got plenty of column inches, despite not exactly being in the geographic wheel well of either paper. Here, squat.

Basically, what Dickerson and Kliff are doing is making sure horrifying facts about beliefs they hold dear--e.g., the necessity of permissive abortion laws--do not become widely known. Because if the facts did become well-known, people might start drawing the wrong conclusions, and start asking questions about those deeply-held beliefs. And maybe even asking for changes and restrictions.

And they can't have that.

Good Friday.

The Archiving of Benedict.

Or, a defense of Pope Benedict XVI.

Be warned--I'm having a bad Lent. This post will display some of that.

I have passed my breaking point with the derogatory comparisons of Pope Francis with Pope Benedict. Even those that aren't intended as derogatory can be, by omission. "Pope Francis is so humble! He cares so much for the poor! He's celebrating Mass at a youth prison!" etc.

Fine. You know what? So did Benedict. All of them. How quickly we forget--or never bothered to notice in the first place. I understand the joy of a new pontiff, and trying to get to know someone who wasn't on any of our radars a month ago. I get that. But--if we don't modulate our reactions, we are, however unknowingly, feeding into a nasty narrative that seeks to pit the new Pope against the Emeritus.

And for some Catholics, the nasty motivation is clear. Behold this stink-bomblet, snarking at ermine and ring-kissing. Something tells me she snaps to in the courtroom (hint--she'd better). But the Pope can't throw her in jail, so she discerns that Christ wanted no earthly signs of respect apart from "How ya doin', Yer Popeship?"

"Anonymous commenters with garbled memories of catechism and glitter aren't representative," you might say. Fine.

How about ordained clerics? Consider this example from one of Roger "RICO" Mahony's (the disgraced Cardinal's own tweets merit no further discussion) ordinands, Deacon Eric Stoltz (no, not the guy from Pulp Fiction).

It was posted as a compare and contrast rebuke, obviously. More humility, less attention toward the cleric. Jay Anderson took a righteous swing at this bit of posturing on Facebook, and smacked it soundly.

While we're at it, Reverend: before leading the Humility Brigades into spiritual battle, you might want to tone down the number of references to yourself on the Saint Brendan's website . On the first page, there's a note that the website was designed by...Eric Stoltz! With a link to www.ericstoltz.com!

But wait--there's more! On the "Presider/Preacher [sic] Schedule page, there's a link to "Deacon Eric's Homilies"! Where you can e-mail Deacon Eric! And there's an "About The Deacon" Page (sorry, under construction)!

Do not despair, however: you can hop on over to the Photo Albums page and...eureka! A photo album dedicated to Deacon Eric's ordination nearly nine years ago--and it's the one with the largest number of files! Ah, that I must decrease and Him increase....

Irony: it's a mean bastard sometimes.

Moving on to less tempting targets...

 Unfortunately, I have to call a foul on First Things for this line:

What seems to be on the heart of Pope Francis—the Vicar of Christ and the pastor of the universal Church on earth—is a desire to move out from under a stifling, dull, and technical rubricism toward the Paschal light of Christ’s redemptive charitable love.

No. No. No. Ten thousand times, no. This is slander. Period. It may be inadvertent, but it is slander nonetheless. It indicates that the writer had no idea of what Benedict was saying or doing with the office of Pope and with the liturgy during his pontificate.

Look, Pope John Paul II was a unique, outsized figure in the history of the Papacy. He had a stage actor's ability to magnify his reach and effect. The odds of his successor replicating that charismatic effect were zero. So Benedict didn't try. Instead, he let the office speak more loudly through historical and liturgical symbolism than he ever could as a stage presence. If the previous papacy was Pope John Paul II, his successor was Pope Benedict XVI. As Amy Welborn brilliantly pointed out, it wasn't because Benedict was a vain monarchical clotheshorse, it was because he was a teacher in an office that was bigger than he was, and he was pointing to a profound historical reality embodied in the Papacy. Likewise, in the liturgy, rubrics were emphasized because it wasn't about the priest--even if he happened to be a Pope--but because the rubrics point to a greater, supernatural reality which is dependent upon God.

So, please, stop pitting RIGHT NOW against LAST MONTH, and engaging in what strongly hints at a washing of one's hands of the previous pontificate. The Body of Christ deserves better.

Yeah, I noticed.

We have a new Pope. Welcome, Pope Francis! Ad multos annos!

But beyond that, my thoughts are still in mid-mull. Some random thoughts, though:

I understand the panic fire from places like Rorate Caeli, but can't condone it. As I mentioned years ago, I wander the borderlands between "conservative" Catholicism and the "traditionalist" variant, or as I like to think of it: "The Great Feud Between The Clans."

My children attend the burgeoning Assumption Grotto homeschooling co-op every week, and my middle daughter received first communion there. They are learning Latin, and Rachel can recite the Glory Be and the Hail Mary flawlessly in the mother tongue of the Church. They like learning from Fathers Perrone and Bustamante, and we haven't managed to offend the hell out of everyone, which is a sign of Providence.

I'm not "there" in traditionalist Catholicism, and may never get there. I understand the centrality of traditionalist concerns regarding liturgy, catechesis, architecture, sacramentalism and the like. I even share it for the most part. But the ready FIRE! aim... mindset wears. Heavily, in fact. It's usually the product of bitter experience at the hands of the loonies unchained by the Second Vatican Council--I get that, and have experienced it myself. But not everyone wearing the tartan the wrong way is some Bolshevik looking to get his Constantine V on. [The capital A Asshole at Assumption Grotto who gave my mother grief for soft talking before Mass when I wasn't present, please take note.] Thus, while I think it is legitimate to wonder about why Buenos Aires couldn't support a TLM under SP if then Abp. Bergoglio was really in favor of it, such does not authorize the shrieky, hysterical meltdown at Rorate Caeli. The man appears on the balcony and people are sounding the alarm klaxons--or worse. That's not productive. In fact, it's more reminiscent of something I'd expect to see from the progressives.

Likewise, conservative Catholics need to quell the tendency towards a Papal-centric reading of all things Catholic. Which is not to be read as some silly National Catholic Reporter-ish I'm-so-wonderfully-well-educated-why-won't-the-Pope-admit-my-middle-class-or-better-progressive-white-American-concerns-are-correct-and-universal? crappola.

But...no Pope is Tradition. He is always and ever its custodian, expounder and occasional definer. But he's not an oracle. If he downplays or seemingly ignores a legitimate part of the collective patrimony, that is worth mentioning, and--yes--charitably questioning.

Thus, let's not forget all that Benedict did, symbolically as well as in writing, simply because we're gaga for the new guy. We can't be a Church of novelty, and the Papacy is bigger than its current occupant. It has to be.

More thoughts later as the mulling continues.

In 1989, during my lapsed-Methodist days, I was turned away from a tour of the Cologne Cathedral because I was wearing khaki shorts.

I changed into long pants, returned, and enjoyed the tour.

Get. Over. Your. Self.

Note the seemless segue from Sally's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the Vatican into pom-pon shaking for Garry Wills' shrieky arguments against the priesthood and sacraments.

What a twit.

Yes, both of them.

America, the Kingdom of Pathological Narcissists.

[Hat tip to Chris for the find.]

Rotavirus--yay.

Tommy enjoyed an encounter with this on Saturday, and decided to share it with Louis and Elizabeth.

Dad's French-Army-In-1940 immune system decided to join in the Fun!™ yesterday. Whee.

How I knew I was sick: they wanted to watch the Bubble Guppies, and I had no objection.

We're getting better, but yeesh. I'll say this--Louis is tougher than a box of roofing nails. He had it the worst, and griped not at all. Amazing kid.

To be fair...

After slagging the editors of America, it behooves me to offer praise where warranted. It is certainly warranted for this blog post about the remarkably nasty (and I know nasty) Garry Wills comments on The Colbert Report.

Read it all.

As an aside, it's important to note that Wills is reflexively unpleasant to people who don't share his views.